Lesbians book series in reading order

by Ellen Hart

by Claire McNab

by Alison Bechdel

by Katherine V. Forrest

by J.M. Redmann

by Tamsyn Muir

by Kate Sweeney

Claire McNab writes lesbian crime fiction set largely in Australia. Detective Inspector Carol Ashton heads the longest series, opening with Lessons in Murder in 1988, and the Denise Cleever thrillers and Kylie Kendall mysteries follow with an intelligence officer and a private investigator. Policewomen, women detectives and lesbian relationships run through 33 books, reaching Aspects of the Heart in 2020 at a median of 201 pages.

Ellen Hart writes mystery novels around two recurring sleuths, Jane Lawless and Sophie Greenway. Women detectives, Minneapolis, restaurateurs and lesbian characters are standing subjects, and culinary detail runs through the books: Hart worked as a professional chef for 14 years. The catalogue holds 35 titles published between 1989 and 2020, opening with Hallowed Murder (1989) and continuing through Vital Lies (1991), Stage Fright (1992), A Small Sacrifice (1994) and The Oldest Sin (1995). In a Midnight Wood (2020) is the last catalogued book.

Ali Vali writes lesbian romance and romantic suspense, with 41 books catalogued from All It Took Was You (2001) to Journey to Amazonia (2026). Cain Casey is a series, and The Devil Inside (2006), The Devil Unleashed (2006) and Deal with the Devil (2008) are among the listed titles. Genesis Clan, Harry & Desi's, Sept Savoie & Keegan Blanchard, Blue Skies and Waves are other series. Subjects include New Orleans, organized crime, women lawyers, restaurateurs and lesbian police officers.

Carsen Taite writes lesbian romance and romantic suspense, with subject records naming women lawyers, women bounty hunters, murder trials and missing persons. The catalogue lists 35 books from Truelesbianlove.com (2008) to Trial Run (2024). Series include Luca Bennett Bounty Hunter, Lone Star Law, Courting Danger and Crime & Defense.

Katherine V. Forrest, born in Canada in 1939, is an American writer known best for the novels about Kate Delafield, a lesbian police detective. Los Angeles appears among the recorded subjects. Forrest's books have won or been finalists for the Lambda Literary Award twelve times. The catalogue lists 18 books from Curious Wine (1983) to Delafield (2022). Amateur City (1984), Murder at the Nightwood Bar (1987), The Beverly Malibu (1989) and Murder by Tradition (1991) are among the titles. Science fiction and life on other planets are also recorded subjects, and the Coral Dawn Trilogy appears among the series. Some have called Forrest a founding mother of lesbian fiction writing.

Alison Bechdel works in comics: the catalogue subjects list comic books and strips, graphic novels, caricatures and cartoons, pictorial American wit and humor, lesbians, lesbianism and LGBTQ humor, together with Lambda Literary Awards. Dykes to Watch Out For, Fun Home, Interviews with Icons, Alison Bechdel Humor & Entertainment and Secret to Superhuman Strength are the five series credited to Bechdel. The 25 books run from Dykes to Watch Out For (1986) to Spent (2025), taking in More Dykes to Watch Out For (1988) and The Indelible Alison Bechdel (1998). The 1990s hold the most titles, and Bechdel is still publishing.

Rita Mae Brown

76 books• 7 series

Rita Mae Brown's catalogue reaches 77 books and splits between literary fiction and mystery. Rubyfruit Jungle (1973) belongs to the early work, catalogued under lesbian fiction. The Mrs. Murphy mysteries pair Harry Haristeen with her cats, and the Sister Jane books follow Jane Arnold and fox hunting. Runnymede is a third sequence. Clawed and Dangerous is the newest title, and Pawsible Suspects is scheduled for 2027.

Melissa Brayden writes sapphic contemporary romance. Waiting in the Wings (2011) opens a catalogue of 30 books that reaches Make Your Move (2026). Four series carry the name: Seven Shores, Soho Loft, Tangle Valley and Heart Block. Actors, the theatre, single mothers and San Diego recur as subjects.

Kate Sweeney writes lesbian mystery and romance. The 47 catalogued books span 2006 to 2019, opening with A Nice Clean Murder and She Waits and closing on Rose's Thorne. The Kate Ryan Mysteries anchor the crime side, with murder and investigation among the recurring subjects, while the Dawn books turn to vampires; Winds of Heaven and Jessica and Cliff complete the series list. Median length runs to 240 pages, and the catalogue reads as complete.

Emma Donoghue

31 books• 5 series

Emma Donoghue is an Irish Canadian novelist, playwright, screenwriter and literary historian, born in October 1969. Room (2010) became an international best-seller and a Booker Prize finalist, and Donoghue's screenplay of the film version earned an Academy Award nomination. Hood (1995) won the Stonewall Book Award, and Slammerkin took the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. In 2025 Donoghue received the Alice B Readers Award. The catalogue holds 31 books, from Passions Between Women (1993) to The Paris Express (2025), including the Lotterys Plus One series.

J.M. Redmann is the author of the Micky Knight mysteries, catalogued under subjects that include lesbian private investigators, women sleuths and New Orleans, Louisiana. The 13 books run from Death by the Riverside (1990) to A Streetcar Named Shenanigans (2026). Deaths of Jocasta (1992), Lost Daughters (1998), Water Mark (2010) and The Girl on the Edge of Summer (2017) sit in between. Redmann is still publishing.

Georgia Beers is an American author of lesbian romance with 52 books catalogued from Turning the Page (2001) to Back to Square One (2026). Fresh Tracks (2006) won the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Romance. Beers's books have taken 13 Goldie Awards from the Golden Crown Literary Society, six of them for romance. Thy Neighbor's Wife (2003), Mine (2007), Finding Home (2008) and 96 Hours (2013) are among the other titles. Puppy Love Romance and Swizzle Stick Romance are named series, and dogs appear in the subjects.

Sandra Scoppettone, born June 1, 1936 in Morristown, New Jersey, is an American author of mysteries and young adult fiction. Scoppettone's earliest catalogued book, Suzuki Beane (1961), was made with illustrator Louise Fitzhugh. Happy Endings Are All Alike (1978), one of the first young adult novels to portray a lesbian relationship, made the ALA Best Books for Young Adults list. Her mystery series feature Lauren Laurano and Faye Quick, and the catalogue holds 22 books through Tag Sale (2011).

Rebekah Weatherspoon writes romance with heroines who are Black, plus-size, disabled and LGBTQ, and founded the website WOC in Romance. Soul to Keep won a Lambda Literary Award in 2017, and Xeni was honoured at the first Ripped Bodice Awards for Excellence in Romance Fiction. Better Off Red (2011) opens a catalogue of 26 titles reaching Summer Official (2026), across series including the Vampire Sorority Sisters, the Fit trilogy, Sugar Baby, Beards & Bondage and the Cowboys of California.

Nicola Griffith

13 books• 4 series

Nicola Griffith, born 30 September 1960, is a British American novelist, essayist and teacher. Awards include the Nebula, the James Tiptree, Jr. Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, two Washington State Book Awards and six Lambda Literary Awards. Griffith joined the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2024 and was named the 41st Damon Knight Memorial Grand Master in 2025. The catalogue has 13 books from Ammonite (1992) to She is Here (2026), including Hild (2013) and the Aud Torvingen and Light of the World series.

Stella Duffy

16 books• 3 series

Stella Frances Silas Duffy, born 1963, is a London-born writer and theatremaker who grew up in New Zealand before returning to Britain. Duffy's 16 catalogued books appeared between 1994 and 2017, from Calendar Girl (1994) to The Hidden Room (2017), taking in Beneath the Blonde (1997), Fresh Flesh (1999), State of Happiness (2004) and Parallel Lies (2005). Two series are recorded, Saz Martin and Empress Theodora, and catalogue subjects name Saz Martin as a recurring fictional character alongside women private investigators, lesbians, LGBTQ novels, London and historical fiction.

Val McDermid

55 books• 13 series

Val McDermid, born 4 June 1955, is a Scottish crime writer whose work falls under the Tartan Noir label and is noted for unflinching violence. The catalogue runs to 55 books, from Report For Murder (1987) to Winter: The Story of a Season (2026). McDermid's best-known novels follow clinical psychologist Tony Hill and his colleagues in the police, a sequence televised as Wire in the Blood from 2002 to 2008. Inspector Karen Pirie, Lindsay Gordon and Kate Brannigan are the other named series. Awards on record include the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger and the Cartier Diamond Dagger.

Tamsyn Muir

12 books• 2 series

Tamsyn Muir, a New Zealand fantasy, science fiction and horror author born on 14 March 1985, is best known for The Locked Tomb, a science fantasy novel series. Gideon the Ninth (2019), the first Muir novel, won the 2020 Locus Award, and Harrow the Ninth followed in 2020. The catalogue lists 12 books from The House that Made the Sixteen Loops of Time (2011) to The Unwanted Guest (2023). Subject tags include necromancy, lesbians, dark fantasy and LGBTQ science fiction and fantasy, and Princess Floralinda and the Forty-Flight Tower is also listed.

May Sarton was the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton (1912-1995), a Belgian and American novelist, poet and memoirist. Sarton came out as a lesbian in the writing in 1965, at a time when that was rare. Poetry opens the catalogue with Encounter in April (1937) and Inner Landscape (1939); novels follow from The Bridge of Years (1946), and diaries make up a third strand. 54 titles are catalogued through 2024, averaging 214 pages, with the 1990s the busiest decade.

Malinda Lo

9 books• 2 series

Malinda Lo is an American writer of young adult novels who also researches diversity in young adult literature and publishing. Nine books are catalogued under the Lo credit, opening with Ash (2009) and reaching A Scatter of Light (2022). Between them sit Huntress (2011), The Fox (2011), Adaptation (2012), Inheritance (2013), Natural Selection (2013), A Line in the Dark (2017) and Last Night at the Telegraph Club (2021). Adaptation is catalogued as a series under the same credit. Recorded subjects include lesbians, sexual orientation, coming of age, fairy tales, fairies, stepfamilies and extraterrestrial beings.

Dorothy Allison

8 books• 1 series

Dorothy Earlene Allison (April 11, 1949 to November 6, 2024) was an American writer whose work addressed class struggle, sexual abuse, child abuse, feminism and lesbianism. Allison identified as a femme lesbian, won several Lambda Literary Awards, and joined the Fellowship of Southern Writers in 2014. The catalogue opens with The Women Who Hate Me (1983) and includes Trash (1988), Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), Skin (1994), Two or Three Things I Know for Sure (1995) and Cavedweller (1998). Subject headings list poor and working class women, feminists, poetry and short stories.

Robin Talley is an American author of young adult books, and has worked as a communications strategist for nonprofit organizations on educational equity, gay rights and women's rights. Talley's novels feature racially diverse and LGBTQ+ characters. The 8 catalogued titles span 2014 to 2024, opening with Lies We Tell Ourselves (2014) and reaching Everything Glittered (2024). Subjects record lesbian teenagers, high schools, race relations, school integration and sexual orientation. Pulp (2018), Music from Another World (2020) and The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre (2020) sit inside the run, and measured volumes reach about 406 pages.

Jacqueline Woodson

42 books• 7 series

Jacqueline Woodson, born February 12, 1963, is an American writer of books for children and young adolescents. Miracle's Boys is Woodson's best-known book, and Brown Girl Dreaming, After Tupac and D Foster, Feathers and Show Way each earned a Newbery Honor. Woodson was Young People's Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017 and National Ambassador for Young People's Literature for 2018 to 2019. Another Brooklyn reached the 2016 National Book Award shortlist for fiction. Honors include the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (2018), the Hans Christian Andersen Award (2020) and a 2020 MacArthur Fellowship. The catalogue lists 42 books from Last Summer with Maizon (1990) to Remember Us (2023), with subjects such as African Americans, friendship, family life, race relations and grief.

Elizabeth Sims, born September 30, 1957, is an American writer and journalist and a contributing editor at Writer's Digest. Sims once reported for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. Two crime series carry the Sims name: the Lillian Byrd books, first published by Alyson Books, and the Rita Farmer Mystery series, first published by St. Martin's Press Minotaur. The 13 catalogued books run from Holy Hell (2002) to Tight Race (2022), and the subject tags include the Lambda Literary Award, lesbians, women journalists and golf. You've Got a Book in You (2013) is also listed.